The development of the hydrogen economy seems to have started. With increasing installations of hydrogen systems in 2019 and 2020, the hydrogen economy began with the most essential technology for its development: the adoption of electrolyzer systems.

 

From the announcement of multi-billion USD investment in the hydrogen sector, and the growing adoption of national hydrogen plans, particularly in Europe, IDTechEx identify hydrogen and particularly the electrolyzers market as a fast-growing scenario.

 

Beginning with the necessity of hydrogen technologies, in the 'Green Hydrogen Production: Electrolyzer Markets 2021-2031' report, IDTechEx started to analyse the actual necessity of the so-called hydrogen economy, providing a comparison with battery solutions. Following with an explanation of the European EU-ETS carbon pricing method, its effectiveness and comparison with other existing carbon taxes is shown. Although restrictions to CO₂ emissions must be fulfilled by different industries, to achieve this target the adoption/integration of green technologies has to be performed.

 

To understand how the electrolyzer market will evolve, in the report the main end-users of hydrogen have been investigated, and following the trends analysed.

 

A deep dive into the different electrolyzer systems is then provided, where differences between the three main electrolyzer systems are provided, in terms of working mechanism, employed materials, system performance, and – a key parameter IDTechEx's view – the different degradation processes taking place.

 

The adopted materials allow the reader to understand which possible OEMs and eventual technical improvements are possible. Coupled with the company profiles performed by IDTechEx, a complete vision of the electrolyzer market is obtained. On the other end, the different degradation processes taking place in the different components of each electrolyzer, show the reader the technical limits and hence future application of the electrolyzer systems.

 

With the current state of development, the market is populated with three electrolyzers: alkaline water electrolyzer (AWE), proton exchange membrane electrolyzer (PEMEL), and solid oxide electrolyzers (SOEL), although only the first two are actively commercialised. All three devices employ electricity to split the water molecules into H2 and O2, and differences among the three technologies are given by the ions exchanged between the two electrodes (OH-, H+, and O= for AWE, PEMEL, and SOEL respectively) which involve the adoption of different electrolytes and materials. Different mechanisms and materials directly impact the performance and properties of each of the three electrolyzers.

 

The AWE systems are the older and most adopted at industrial scale, with first installations occurring in the 1920s. PEMEL devices come from the improvement of PEM fuel cells. The first installations of PEMEL systems were recorded in the 2000s.

 

The latest and youngest technology, SOEL systems are currently approaching the market. Besides the different ion exchange by the device, this system operates at higher temperature (600-850 Celsius) than PEM or AEL device (both ranging between 50 and 90 Celsius). The higher working operation of this system, although requiring resistant materials and expensive fabrication processes, prevent the utilisation of expensive catalysts, facilitating the decomposition of water molecules, but also allowing the adoption of other fuels, such as CO₂ and water vapour, obtaining another important industrial gas feedstock: syngas (CO + H₂).

 

The electrolyzer market is currently split between the two older technologies: alkaline and proton exchange membrane. The early stage of the SOEL technology is slowly approaching the market.

 

In the final part of the report, the efficiency calculation of commercialised systems has been performed, showing the reader a comparison of PEMEL and AWE systems. From the analysis performed, IDTechEx outlined the future trends of adoption of the main electrolyzer types.

 

In conclusion, given the detailed investigation IDTechEx performed to understand the current evolution of the electrolyzer market, the latest developments regarding the largest electrolyzer manufacturers are provided. These case studies are clear examples of how the electrolyte manufacturers are approaching the market.

 

The outcome of the techno-economic investigation provided by the report is a market forecast regarding the amount of electrolyzer systems in MW installed, together with an estimation of the market value.

 

 

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